New California HealthCare Foundation Journal Series to Educate Providers About Medical Errors
The California HealthCare Foundation has sponsored a new journal series to help providers reduce medical errors through individual case presentations. The first article in the eight-part series, titled "Quality Grand Rounds," appears in the June 4 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. The article features a case study of an unidentified hospital where 17 medical errors allowed a patient to receive an "invasive procedure intended for another patient." According to Dr. Robert Wachter, associate chair of the University of California-San Francisco department of medicine and executive editor of the new series, "The 1999 Institute of Medicine report, 'To Err is Human,' shocked people and catalyzed a new focus on patient safety. ... By presenting and analyzing individual cases, we can educate physicians to understand the role of both individual and systems factors that merge to create a medical error." The series also provides information to help patients avoid medical errors. "A number of important initiatives have been undertaken to get hospitals to publicly disclose their progress towards safety programs, clinical outcomes, and even patient-reported experience. In California and other states, a growing body of consumer-friendly information about hospitals, readily available online, will ultimately create a strong market incentive for hospitals to improve," Dr. Mark Smith, president and CEO of CHCF and co-executive editor of the series, said. CHCF will sponsor presentations on medical errors at several California hospitals over the next year (CHCF release, 6/3).
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